Fans of Texas historical past and the 1927 Santa Claus Bank Robbery in Cisco could have the probability to indulge in it Friday as the creator of a new fictionalized account of the notorious crime seems in Abilene.
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Austin creator Thomas Goodman will signal copies of his new novel, The Last Man, 2-3:30 p.m. Friday at Abilene’s Texas Star Trading Company, and alternatively in the Eastland County Square all over Saturday’s Old Rip Festival. Goodman’s e-book explores what may have took place to the fourth guy of the staff who robbed Cisco’s First National Bank on Dec. 23, 1927.
One of the maximum notorious financial institution robberies of the time, the caper will get its title from the heist’s mastermind, Marshall Ratliff, who believed dressing as Kris Kringle would help with the anonymity wanted for the crime as no person would suspect Santa Claus strolling right into a financial institution so with regards to Christmas Eve.
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The theft and its blunders resulted in the greatest manhunt in Texas historical past, in addition to the ultimate public lynching in the state once they broke into the Eastland County Jail to hold Ratliff who had killed a jailer the evening earlier than.
The ancient match used to be popularized by means of creator A.C. Greene’s nonfiction account, The Santa Claus Bank Robbery (1972). Goodman’s tale focuses on what may have change into of the fourth guy in the theft, the destiny of the different 3 having been well-documented.
“I had to devise the dialogue and motivations of the characters,” Goodman writes, “but the robbery, the manhunt, the execution, the escapes, and the lynching follow the newspaper record” of mythical journalist Boyce House and accounts by means of famous Cisco historian J. W. Sitton in addition to A.C. Greene.
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